Why are people so stupid?!?

In this episode

• the Cipolla model

• the Bonhoeffer model

• why people behave like this

• what can we do about stupidity

  • These are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:

    1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

    2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

    3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

    4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

    5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

References:

Sunk cost Fallacy

Conformity bias

Bonhoeffer’s theory

Cipolla’s theory

The Vice documentary of the Lev Tahor Cult

Advice for dealing with people